


in all things

by catsvspatriarchy



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 10:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21372406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsvspatriarchy/pseuds/catsvspatriarchy
Summary: Kelly thinks it's unfair that a few hours out from bodily possession, a bomb strapped to her chest, and a supervillain showdown, Alex can just eat carbs and go to sleep.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen
Comments: 22
Kudos: 113





	in all things

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello friends,
> 
> i started writing this after 5x04 and then in 5x05 the show addressed it more succinctly than i did. but i figured someone might want to read this anyway idk. enjoy? 
> 
> constructive criticism is always welcome - i have not written anything for a long time and am trying to get a feel for it again. i love these characters and enjoyed trying to explore them a little bit more.

Kelly thinks it's unfair that a few hours out from bodily possession, a bomb strapped to her chest, and a supervillain showdown, Alex can just eat carbs and go to sleep. 

Or nearly sleep – Alex drowses beside her, skin lit blue in the twilight, the line of her hip like a poem. Kelly still has the taste of Alex on her lips – the fierce, fearful way she'd needed to reclaim her lover fresh in her mind – and the wine and the unwind have not made her less fretful.

“Babe,” she says, quietly, fingertips trailing Alex's neck to shoulder and along the muscle of her back. She's quiet because there's a kind of reverence in the air that they've cheated death again – she's lucky, she's so lucky – but James is leaving and people are not who they appear to be and Alex needs her sleep, and Kelly's comedown from the adrenaline rush of the day – of the last few weeks, honestly - still eludes her.

“Mmm?” Alex says.

Kelly hesitates. The window's open, the night is fresh, and she has every reason to be happy. 

But she's always been an overthinker.

"Is it always like this?" she asks, finally, her voice smaller than she expected, lost in the dusky room, trailing before it touches the walls.

Alex murmurs something unintelligible and raises herself up on one elbow. She looks over her shoulder at Kelly with sleepy eyes. 

"Is-" Alex pauses; yawns. "Is what always like - uh, what? I'm sorry, I'm - prob'ly need coffee."

"No, I'm sorry," says Kelly, around her pang of guilt. "I shouldn't have woken you."

"Wasn't really asleep," Alex says, and turns over to face her. The sheet is tangled around her legs and her toes hang off the end of the bed. She yawns again, and raises a hand to trace Kelly's lips with her thumb. Kelly leans into it and closes her eyes.

"Is your life always like this?"

"Oh," says Alex. "Oh. That."

"That," Kelly agrees, and opens her eyes. Alex's hand still whispers at her jawline, but there's tension in her fingers now.

"This has been - a lot." Alex's hand stills, then drops to the pillow. "I get that."

"Let me explain myself?" Kelly says. She looks at Alex, who nods without speaking, a crease of worry appearing between her eyes. She takes a long moment, rolling the thought around in her head, and Alex waits. "I-" Kelly starts, and then: "Is this-", and then she stops herself again and presses a hand to her face in frustration. She's not used to feeling like her thoughts are struggling through thick fog. Everything with Alex has always been so clear to her, but this is a maelstrom of red-hot nerves and the memory of the countdown timer strapped to Alex's body.

She looks at Alex now. Really looks – takes in the blue veins under the skin of her wrist, the soft skin under her jaw, the fine tapering muscle of her thigh visible beneath the haphazard sheet. Alex is so fine-boned, and how had she never noticed this before? Alex, who had seemed larger than the space she took up; Alex who could put steel into her words that made people afraid; Alex who fought the bad guys and made it look easy. Her Alex.

"I dreamed about drowning," Kelly says, and it's not at all what she'd intended to say.

"Oh." Alex reaches for Kelly with both arms in a 'come here' gesture that's becoming familiar, a way to comfort the both of them. 

Kelly inches into her, feeling the warmth of Alex's exposed skin. She pushes her face into the fall of red hair, and breathes.

"A bad dream?" Alex asks, after a moment. "Do you usually have nightmares?"

"Not now," Kelly says, shaking her head, but minutely, so she can keep her face pressed against Alex. "I didn't dream it now. Tonight, I mean. God, I can't seem to explain myself."

"Hey," Alex says, and strokes a hand down her back. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

_Maybe you are, though_, Kelly thinks but doesn't say. She says: "I dreamed it in Iraq."

* * *

Maybe it was the dust or the heat or the constant hum of people around – we always fixate on what we don't have. Kelly's dream was dark and roiling; the ocean but not as she'd ever seen it before, blue and dreamy-foam-tipped on vacations. It was snakeskin and coiled claws and rotted ropes; she was in the water; she was of it; it was all around her, suffocating; it was over her head. She'd been alone in the dark and cold water,and powerless. Waves upon waves crashed over her, and she struggled uselessly against them and got pushed back down, again and again.

She'd woken sick and panting in her bunk, sweat on her back. She'd felt so small, so ineffective, cast along on the water with no way back to land.

* * *

Alex doesn't say anything for a while, then sits up and silently pulls on a shirt. Kelly draws away, but Alex runs her hand down her back again as she stands up, then goes to the window and leans out for a minute before closing it. Kelly's grateful for the chance to regroup.

“Cooling down out there,” Alex says.

“I think it'll rain,” Kelly says, and is immediately annoyed with herself for being so quick to grab onto a change of subject.

Alex contemplates the dark sky. “Hope so. We need it.”

“To cool the city down?” Kelly asks. National City is always running hot; she knows Alex will understand what she means.

When Alex turns back to her, she's smiling wryly. “It's been pretty hot the last few weeks. How are you doing?”

“I saw you,” Kelly blurts out. “In this – connection, whatever I have – had - with Malefic. I could _see_ you were in danger. But I couldn't do anything.”

“You came back,” Alex says, frowning. “You came back and helped. That's not nothing, Kel.”

Kelly doesn't reply, just slips out of the bed and goes to the kitchen for a bottle of water. She doesn't bother covering herself; the night air feels soft on her skin, and she can feel Alex's gaze following her.

She comes back to bed twisting the top off the bottle, and takes a deep drink before handing it to Alex.

“It's an issue for me,” Kelly says. “Feeling helpless like that.”

Alex looks guarded. “I understand.”

“It brings up old, um, old pain.”

Alex's expression softens – she puts the bottle on the bedside table and reaches for Kelly's hand. “Tell me,” she says simply.

Kelly takes a breath. “I saw a lot of things I couldn't change over there, Alex. I had to – you have to come to terms with a lack of control over – over events that affect you. But that acceptance comes with a price. That feeling of powerlessness, it eats away at you. When you can't protect the people you love, that eats away at you.”

Alex's eyes are lambent in the near-dark. “Yeah,” she says. Kelly has to lean in to hear her. “I think I understand how that feels.”

“You know about my fiancee.” It isn't a question.

Alex nods. When Kelly doesn't speak again, she prompts her: “And your dreams? You said you dreamed.”

“This made me think of it – all this. That loss of control. It's so overwhelming.”

Alex waits.

“It's why I wanted to help trauma patients. We lost so many people – there was so much suffering – I felt some of it, and it's hard. It's so hard. I wanted to help people through that.”

"-and everything that's been happening has brought back bad memories. You asked me if it's always like this."

Kelly blinks. "I thought you'd forgotten the question."

"I didn't forget," Alex says. "Half-asleep is not my most brilliant time, I admit, and I may not have had the answer. I don't know if I have the answer now, at least the one you're looking for. It's - it kind of is. My life. Always like this."

Kelly doesn't realize she's raised a hand to her mouth until she feels her fingers on her own lips. "I guess I thought maybe you'd sugarcoat it. I guess I should have known you better."

"Ouch."

"It's not a bad thing. I always want you to be honest with me."

"Well," Alex starts. "It's mostly like this, but it's not always the horrifying, world-destroying, soul-sucking, unrelenting - you get the picture. The last few weeks have been worse than most. Knowing you were in danger was the hardest thing I've had to face in a long time."

"You were freaking out. It was kind of adorable, but definitely freaking out."

"Thank you," says Alex. "I think. But even in that dark place, when I was so worried, there were good things happening. I could help people - I could work on things that would help. It's hard and it's tiring and it's scary but it's rewarding, you know? And, sometimes it's fun."

Kelly raises an eyebrow.

"Come on," Alex says, and, slipping a hand behind Kelly's head, pulls her in for a kiss. "You have to admit that when it's not terrifying, it can be kind of fun. We're part of a world most people never see. The science, the technology we use - "

"The toys," Kelly says dryly.

"I was thinking of the innovations," Alex says with dignity. "Not the things that go boom. But the things that go boom are a perk, too."

"I can't believe I fell in love with an-" Kelly almost says _another_; stops herself in time. "Adrenaline junkie."

Alex trails her hand down Kelly's hair. "In love, huh?"

"Did you doubt it?"

Alex doesn't answer for a minute. Then: "No. Honestly, no."

"Good."

"So - where does this leave us?"

Kelly rolls the thought around in her mind for a moment. "Honestly? I'm always going to find this hard. It's just the way I'm wired now. So, I'm nervous of what the future will bring. But also, interested. The work I'm doing at Obsidian is amazing – groundbreaking. It energizes me, and I can see your work does the same. If we talk and stay open - if we're honest with each other - I think I can handle a little more of this."

Alex cocks her head. "Just a little more?"

"Maybe a lot more," Kelly concedes. "Just – keep checking in? I'll tell you when I'm struggling. If you'll do the same."

"That sounds like a fair deal. You're good at what you do, Kel. We need you."

Kelly waits.

"I need you." The words are a little stilted, like Alex is having trouble getting them past her teeth. But then she smiles, and there's something about Alex's smile, unfettered and just for her, that loosens something inside Kelly, that breaks through the hardwood box around her heart. 

"I really do," Alex adds after a moment, almost to herself.

"You sound surprised,” Kelly says.

"No," Alex says. "Not surprised. Just happy. You make me happy. Us, this -" she gestures between the two of them, curled together on the bed. "-We make me happy."

"Me, too," says Kelly.

Alex wrinkles her nose, and Kelly sees a tease coming. "Really?"

"Do you doubt it?"

It's a tease of Kelly's own; a little bit. Kelly knows there's often truth in the questions people ask, though, even when they're framed as a joke.

Alex pushes closer into her, pressing against her body so solidly that Kelly almost rolls back, and fists a hand in Alex's shirt to ground herself. Alex's lips brush her ear, then the graze of her teeth. Alex's cheek is soft against her own and her skin is so warm, like she's been in the sun. She smells clean and grassy and alive, and Kelly can't help her hitch of breath; the fear and the gratitude both like a quick knife between her ribs.

"No," Alex says, softly and then louder: “I don't doubt it. No.”


End file.
